ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Genet.
Sec. Applied Genetic Epidemiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fgene.2025.1631446
New therapeutic targets for endometriosis predicted through Mendelian randomization analysis and case-control trials
Provisionally accepted
- 1First Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China
- 2The Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China
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Endometriosis is a common chronic gynecological condition that affects approximately 10% of women of reproductive age worldwide. This study utilized largescale genome-wide association study data and explored the causal relationship between blood metabolites, plasma proteins, and endometriosis by Mendelian randomization and colocalization analysis methods. Clinical pathological data were collected, and hypotheses were validated through experiments such as ELISA, RT-qPCR, and Western blotting. RSPO3 and FLT were found to be potentially associated with endometriosis within the proteome. External validation and colocalization analysis confirmed the robustness of the association with RSPO3. Blood and tissue samples were collected from clinical patients to assess the accuracy of these predictions. The results suggest that RSPO3 may be a new target for the treatment of endometriosis, providing a direction for future drug development.
Keywords: Drug target prediction, Endometriosis, plasma proteins, Mendelian randomization, Rspo3
Received: 05 Jun 2025; Accepted: 04 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zheng, Yin, Wang, Wang, Cui and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Guangmei Zhang, First Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China
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